first I pulled these three fabrics , then I thought oh maybe I need to add in one more...

I added this red and love the way it looks with the green and the pink....
what am I planning????
I found this free pattern Baby Baskets on line. It is by Anita Shackelford How great is this? 14 x 14 so it will fit nicely on my wall of little quilts! or maybe it will be a gift . ( I still need to make one for the Christmas thru the year with Darlene and Cheryl) I am thinking the basket will be pink and the border and cornerstone will be red..or maybe just red and green and it can be used during the holidays...


so are you tempted to make this little quilt too? If so what colors would you make it in?
Thanks Anita for sharing it with us.
I am still debating on the quilting for my border, thanks for all your suggestions. I decided to put it aside for a few days while I figure it out.

whenever I quilt a little quilt I always try and do something a bit different. Here I am marking my lines to hand quilt not evenly spaced across the strip, instead I measured in from the seam and marked the same on each side

Here I am trying to decide if I should mark the borders with a wavy design or not....see we can use these rulers to do different things :) any suggestions for a border hand quilting design for this little quilt?

These are the green fabrics so many of you emailed me asking what fabric line were those green fromI guess I may not be the only one willing to move over to non repro's to get the right color! nice to know I am not alone!

pure beauty to me....turkey reds and just look at those blues and browns... I have been waiting for this fabric line for so long. Friendship by Howard Marcus of Moda.
Now why oh why did I only order only ONE fat quarter bundle? I should have ordered a few, or at least two, I will need another one as this needs to be made into a quilt for ME! now I have to wait for the order of turkey reds from this line....

If your remotely thinking about redoing your sewing room or looking for ways to store , organize and just "dress up" your sewing room this book is for you. Better Homes and Garden Studio Spaces I bought it a few weeks ago and have looked at it everyday. It is a quilt room dream book.....
the photos in this book are to die for, when I grow up I want a sewing room (I still have a hard time calling it my studio) like so many of these ;)....someday. click on the link and you can see a preview of the book, be prepared to be awed!

I bought these two greens on Friday , my first non reproduction fabrics to use in my reproduction of antique quilts. The colors are just perfect for those mid 1800's Baltimore Album, and red and green quilts I love so much. Thanks Corienne ( a quilt historian friend ) for your help!
Thanks to those of you that said buy the fabrics that the color is right, I did it!

When I saw this book 60 Pieced Quilt Borders, Mix and Match by Judy Laquidara on Amazon I knew I had to have it! Lately I have been thinking about borders and how so many quilts I have made the past 2 years or so have not had borders. I love simple quilts. As you know I use antique quilts as my inspiration, I think I was in a utilitarian quilt mode. I wanted some inspiration for pieced borders to add to some of my future quilts and wow this book has it! 60 Pieced border ideas and I love that they are showed with an empty center so you can imagine your quilt inside with that border! perfect.

Isn't this just so clever? Imagine there are 60 different pages like these with so many great border ideas....
its truly an inspirational book of borders...One that should be in your library if you are looking for border ideas
Each border gives you the dimensions of what your quilt size should be before this border. There are 15 quilt patterns of all different sizes in the book and each pattern has 4 different border patterns/suggestions you could use. I can easily see making any quilt and using these border patterns for my own quilt designs as well just adapting the pattern to fit my quilt size if necessary. I love books that are inspirational like this....check it out at your LQS or bookstore, I think you will be inspired by her border ideas too.

Look there is even a double nine patch quilt I just may have to whip up soon!!!!

I started hand quilting my little quilt yesterday....this is what is waiting for me this am....

Did you see who has a new book coming out???? Gwen Marston....
oh I can't wait for this one, she is one of my all time favorite quilt idols! I have been so inspired by her work for many years.

I had a lot of fun making my first Schnibbles quilt by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. SPOT. It won't be my last. I normally cut and sew, have to admit to not really paying attention to directions (don't you all do this too?), I make a few blocks cut some more make a few more blocks...till its done this time I decided to follow the instructions, WOW what a revelation! It was so easy to just make a few blocks when I had time, it was all precut. She lays these patterns out that once you cut them you can just sew, sew, sew!


I am happy I went with just 2 fabrics for this one, did you notice the background fabric, yup, dots! spots!
To border or not to border is the next decision. I am leaning towards no border and bind it in the red
Now lets see if I can do the T quilt for this month's, another year of Schnibbles pattern Bibelot .

Here is another quilt I started last week, its a reproduction of an antique quilt my friend owns. I am so lucky to have friends that lend me their antique quilts to study and reproduce.
This one just has a real folk arty feel to it and well its red and green what could be better? I traced the pattern and just changed the points to be a tad more rounded, I should have turned my block to be the same way as the antique, its a bit wider then longer.
some progress being made in the sewing room....

The mail just keeps coming!
A friend sent me a link to an etsy shop knowing I would love this quilt!
She was right, I bought it , now I can't wait to hand quilt it. martha made it all from antique fabrics, what a treasure trove of beautiful fabrics, I just love it. its little, approx. 18.5" x 19"
Martha has an interesting blog, very creative ! Q is for Quilter check it out.

Marisa from quilt otaku blog sent me this lego quilt studio
ok just how fun is this? I am going to put it together and put it on a shelf in my sewing room! I was just so thrilled
brings back many memories of my DD's playing with petshop and legos when they were little!
Thank you!!!!
thank you for all your nice comments on my latest nine patch quilt, it really was fun to make.
more pictures so you can see the fabrics if your interested...

here is another quilt I just had machine quilted that I need to bind! I bet your thinking how many nine patch quilts can she make? oh stay tuned I bet another 100 or so! I loved this fabric combo( don't you just love red and brown quilts?) and just started making nine patches and then added a rail fence to frame the blocks on point. I love making the outside row on point in one fabric sort of makes a framed border don't you think?
This was a fun quilt to make....

The winner of my little quilt kit giveaway is Libby from Plain and Simple
just send me your address and I get it off in the mail to you.

as i wait patiently (OK NOT patiently for this fabric to arrive!) Collection for a Cause Friendship line by Howard Marcus should be arriving to quilt shops soon. I have been studying a few red and green antique applique quilts that I want to reproduce and started thinking about the hand quilting too, I pulled these out yesterday and well just in awe just look at the quilting in the next few pictures....to die for! Isn't it funny how we love them whether they are 6 stitches to an inch, 12 stitches to an inch , perfect not perfect. Why oh why are we so hard on ourselves?
my goal is to hand quilt more and just stop being so obsessed with perfect stitches and do my best.
thought you would enjoy seeing the hand quilting on a few of the antique quilts I will be reproducing the next year.
But first a PLEA to MODA please let Barbara Brackman do a poison green /acid green/lime green you know those greens in the quilts from the 1850's or so fabric line to go with this fabric line...WE NEED THEM to reproduce the antique quilts we all love....PLEASE!
so leave me a comment if your one of those quilters always looking for these turkey reds and poison greens from the mid 1800's , maybe I need to start a petition think it will work?

when I should have been sewing the rows together of my nine patch and hst quilt I decided to whip up this little quilt today!
See what happens when a friend says go look in this book, Simple Graces by Kim Diehl, so as I was flipping thru the book to see what she was talking about I came across this little quilt. There isn't a real pattern for it she suggests making it from your left overs from one of her quilts, I thought OH I can do that from the left overs of all these nine patches I just made. See leftovers are good! maybe that should be the name of the quilt? If it was your little quilt what would you call it???? Start thinking of a name ...why??? cause I cut a kit for someone to make the quilt too! So if you would like to win a kit for this little quilt just leave me a comment. I will pick A winner by Thursday this week

Here is the book by Kim....love her quilts.

Back in Sept 2010 I went to a quilt show in Pa and fell in love with this quilt, M.E.C. Remembered. When I read the card and saw that is was a reproduction of an antique quilt owned by Barbara Burnham I knew I had to find out if there was a pattern for this amazing quilt.
I spent almost the whole time at the show studying this quilt! I kept asking myself how did she do that ? The dimension on some of the flowers is amazing, the embroidery on some of the flowers is just so interesting and reminded me of many antique BA style quilts I have seen over the years. I was in AWE! I just fell in love with so many of the blocks....patterns I had not seen before.
the quilt is just so beautiful. I don't think I was home 15 minutes and I was writing to Barbara telling her how much I LOVED this quilt and asking was there a pattern? (No I don't know Barbara personally I just knew the name from a quilt group I belong to online. ) She said no there wasn't a pattern available now but she was hoping to publish one sometime in the future.
I thought about this quilt over the past year and 1/2 or so many times, remembering the birds, the vases, the wreaths and that amazing border....I was beyond thrilled when I found out it was going to be a book with AQS. Baltimore Garden Quilt by Barbara M. Burnham

Barbara owns the antique quilt and one of the biggest things I love about the book is how she shows her block and the antique block on the same page so you can compare it. (yes I love antique quilts so this was very exciting for me!).

The next best thing about the book is that it comes with a CD for the patterns. Within 2 minutes from pushing print on the printer to putting the 4 sheets on my cutting table LOOK i had the pattern ready to be traced and start a block!
NOW this is huge for me, KUDOS to AQS for including a CD for the patterns. no trip to a copy center, no tracing the pattern 3 times to make one block, 2 minutes and I am ready to make the templates....
don't you agree????

The book is very well written, it has lots of tips I can't wait to try and lots of illustrations showing you many techniques on how to do everything you need to know to make this quilt. I loved how there is a chapter on additional techniques showing you how to reverse applique, buttonhole stitching for embroidery, how to make perfect circles, appliquéing tiny shapes! layered vases, layered flower and more. She truly has written this book so you will have all the instructions and illustrations you need to make this quilt. I know it will be a book I refer back to many times to refresh my memory how to do a specific technique for applique.

Love this block! and this one too!

the search is on now for the perfect fabrics!!!!
Barbara has joined blogland ,Baltimore Garden Quilts, go say hello and encourage her to share more about this quilt and other quilts she has made!
sorry I couldn't edit the pictures , guess I need a new camera!
thank you so much for all your kind words and nice comments about my version of Taryn's antique quilt in my last post . It made my day.